[Proposal to Nokia/Qt] Create a "Qt Runtime"
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[quote author="Volker" date="1310372580"]... as you use an unmodified version of Qt you can always point to the original archives of Trolltech/Nokia/...[/quote]
I am not sure if this matter could be solved as simply as you describe. I mean, I wish it could, but ... I just don't know. That is why I believe it would be very useful to have an official answer from Nokia/Qt on http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/LicensingQuestions
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[quote author="Ioannis Vranos" date="1310310863"]I voted yes, I think Qt Frameworks with the free dependencies (with MINGW compiler DLLs for Windows) and the rest systems should be available, in the style that .NET Framework is available for installation for all .NET applications in Windows.[/quote]
Yes, from a technical point of view, this could be another advantage of having a "Qt Runtime"!
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Oh, and something I forgot:
As cool as Qt is and as much as I like it for programming, I really would appreciate to have it spread much more. But to be honest: hardly any standard user will have more than one or two applications using Qt on his/her machine. Setting up a service for this rather small crowd is just too much wasted time in my opinion - let alone that not all Qt applications will use it. -
[quote author="Volker" date="1310379665"]Oh, and something I forgot:
As cool as Qt is and as much as I like it for programming, I really would appreciate to have it spread much more. But to be honest: hardly any standard user will have more than one or two applications using Qt on his/her machine. Setting up a service for this rather small crowd is just too much wasted time in my opinion - let alone that not all Qt applications will use it.[/quote]Yes Volker, I understand what you say and, partially, I agree. Having said that, I think that we want to support Qt so it could evolve even more, so having a "Qt Runtime" as other frameworks provide would be a step towards this direction.
Also, the number of applications installed on a machine is not that important for this matter, IMHO: for example, I think that there are people who install .NET for 1 or 2 applications (using .NET) installed with the same machine, don't you think? Additionally, my proposal will give the ability (eg: through a network installer) for downloading only the needed dll files (for the windows example discussed).
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Also, do not forget that what I propose is, from some points of view, similar to what is already implemented for mobile phones with: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Nokia_Smart_Installer_for_Symbian
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In the mobile world you're actually bound to one or two installers. The same goes for the Linux distros.
On windows you have a myriad of installer builders (nullsoft, innosetup, WiX, standard MSI installers, Qt installer framework, Bitrock, InstallShield, InstallerFramework - and those are the only ones that come to my mind while thinking 10 seconds about it). One would have to support all of these or force the developers to use one of them.
Then you would have to make that bundle configurable, eg. for which Qt modules (not everyone needs QtWebKit or QtScript) and wich plugins (imageformats, sqldrivers...) to install. If you need some sql plugin apart from SQLite you would have to provide that on your own anyways, together with the db libs.
Don't get me wrong - I see the good idea behind that, but I just don't see the benefits, as it would most probably a windows only service.
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[quote author="Volker" date="1310383679"]In the mobile world you're actually bound to one or two installers. The same goes for the Linux distros.
On windows you have a myriad of installer builders (nullsoft, innosetup, WiX, standard MSI installers, Qt installer framework, Bitrock, InstallShield, InstallerFramework - and those are the only ones that come to my mind while thinking 10 seconds about it). One would have to support all of these or force the developers to use one of them.
Then you would have to make that bundle configurable, eg. for which Qt modules (not everyone needs QtWebKit or QtScript) and wich plugins (imageformats, sqldrivers...) to install. If you need some sql plugin apart from SQLite you would have to provide that on your own anyways, together with the db libs.
Don't get me wrong - I see the good idea behind that, but I just don't see the benefits, as it would most probably a windows only service.[/quote]
Believe me Volker, I do not take you wrong: I read and process very carefully every post you provided in this thread. :-)
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[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1310383839"]
Believe me Volker, I do not take you wrong: I read and process very carefully every post you provided in this thread. :-)[/quote]Glad to hear that. I hope you don't get the impression that I'm the guy who's only picking the negative points :-)
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[quote author="Volker" date="1310384024"]
[quote author="Stavros Filippidis" date="1310383839"]
Believe me Volker, I do not take you wrong: I read and process very carefully every post you provided in this thread. :-)[/quote]Glad to hear that. I hope you don't get the impression that I'm the guy who's only picking the negative points :-)[/quote]
Of course not! :-)
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I voted yes.
It has been said in the past in http://labs.qt.nokia.com/ that qt is going to be more modular.
This purpose makes qt more modular..Also i want to mention some benefits for the unix that something like this might have.
Something like this (the proposal) can benefit distros which doesn't use binaries such as gentoo and slackware (they compile their binaries from the sources,a lot of time for Qt!)Also note that only KDE users and Qt programmers need the entire Qt,all the others,they just need some modules of it(Qt frameworks),why these users should install/compile the entire Qt.
Don't take me wrong,but someone who needs just some Qt modules can blame the Qt frameworks that forces his to install in his system the entire Qt.Moreover,Qt is going to be more "open" (Qt 5),so proposals like these will not make Qt frameworks more windows friendly,(at least not with the bad meaning of it).Actually the otherwise will happen,more modular Qt means more Qt in windows systems,so when people will start searching for more (bigger) Qtish stuff they will come across to projects like KDE,meego which are of course unix friendly.:)